I don’t argue, and to my surprise, neither does Mare. He climbs into her arms without a fight and stays slumped on her shoulder the whole way up. The extra weight on my body reminds me that it would have been more detrimental to our hike if I had chosen to carry him too. I expect to feel some sort of inadequacy, but it doesn’t come.
All I feel is a slight awe and heartache. The princess is a piece of our Guardians on earth, but Mare still deserves to be carried by his sister. Yet instead of worrying about him getting too cold, Suyai is stuck in Lima alone. She’s probably cursing me as we speak or organizing a group to search for us. Maybe she even had time to use her specialty and read where the princess was taking us during the attack. Maybe… I stop my thoughts before they get too realistic, before they delve into terrifying territory.
When the cave comes into view, I’m mostly free of the image of Suyai as just another dead soldier.
We settle in and put Mare in the crease between the ground and the rock wall. The cave is as safeguarded, both from the elements and potential attackers, as the princess promised, though it’s less a cave and more a series of slabs of rocks leaning against the mountainside. It goes deep enough in for Mare to be safe from the smoke of the fire that I start at the entrance. Still, it’s insulated enough for the fire to keep him warm.
The ground is all dirt, and it gets all over my clothes as I kneel to strengthen the fire. The princess is organizing the food we brought up with a single-minded precision that can only mean she has something on her mind she’s trying to avoid. No one looks at cans of vegetables that intensely for no reason.
“What’s on your mind, princess?” I ask. The silence may be strong, but so am I.
“How uncouth of you to ask me that,” she replies, prim and proper even in a cave covered in dirt. It startles a laugh out of me. She jumps in surprise, then returns to staring at the jars with increased concentration.
I try again.
“You’re not going to heat them up with your staring, no matter how much you try,” I say. Nothing. Not even an eye roll. “I mean, maybeyoucan, with the blessing of the Guardians and whatnot, but I think it would be much less of a pain to put it over the fire.”
She remains stone-faced.
“Though I will say if heating some choclo is what convinces you to get your mimicry back, then by all means–”
“Have you considered I can’t get my mimicry back, or do you just speak without thinking through the reality of our situation?” she snaps.
“Um, definitely the second one,” I say, not that my words matter. Her words matter. The confession she let slip in a moment of frustration makes all the difference.
I hadn’t let myself consider that she couldn’t get her mimicry back. It shouldn’t be possible. She’s the legendary princess of the empire. She’s the only child of the Guardians who’s allowed their powers without consequence, who’s not spitting in their face with every use. Yes, her hair may blanch, but it comes back to life. It always does.
Why wouldn’t it now?
“Stop looking at me like that,” she snaps. “I didn’t say that for you to gawk at me.”
“Why say it then?”
“To get it through your thick skull that you’re better off leaving me behind and finding another mimic to raise theisland.” The force with which she speaks threatens to knock me down. For certain, she means it.
“How do I know you’re not just lying?” I say before I can think it through, and, damn, I should have thought it through.
She flinches as if I hit her. There was a softness in her before that I didn’t notice until it was gone. I want it back, but I don’t know how to do anything else but keep going.
“You could be saying that so I leave you alone. Why else would you not be able to get it back now when you have before?” I ask.
“You have no idea what you’re speaking about.”
“Then enlighten me!” I shout. My voice reverberates through the cave walls, and I suddenly remember Mare sleeping in the back. “Enlighten me, princess,” I repeat in a whisper.
She finally looks at me, placing the choclo on the ground with enough force to cause an earthquake. Even with her hair white and short, there’s a power inside the princess that makes part of me excited. Not that I would ever show that.
Her posture straightens and turns her spine rigid. She rises, looking like the megalithic Gods that rise from the ground. She can’t mimic the Guardians’ powers right now, but her innatesamayis more than enough.
She steps in front of me and, without hesitation, pushes my shoulders. Her strength knocks me back, and I fall onto my elbows. I feel everything from the bits of rock digging into my skin to the leftover heat of her hands on me.
“I don’t owe you a damn thing, champion. Remember that. Whatever I tell you is because I choose to, not because of your misguided sense of entitlement.”
Leaning over me, she looks like a being straight from the heavens. The awe that I thought I had shaken off once we left Lima is back in full force.
“You are so beautiful,” I say, and I’m rewarded by the dark red flooding her tan skin. It’s not proper for a soldier like me, but when have I ever cared about propriety?
The princess falls to her knees and huffs out a laugh.
